Jacobs stretches Quillin in One! Boxing Challenge

The Boxing challenge continued as R.L.Malpica and I each earned 4 points to keep my lead at 145-140 after a Showtime televised card from Brooklyn...

R.L. is in a tough spot with the season running out and he has to pick upsets to hope for a comeback.

R.L. picked up two points from the main event as Daniel Jacobs stopped Peter Quillin in the first round of the middleweight "Battle for Brooklyn".
Jacobs simply overwhelmed Quillin with a stunning assault that sent Quillin dazed and wobbling badly away from Jacobs before a referee stoppage.
Quillin was never knocked down,but his eyes betrayed him and while I thought the stoppage was a little fast in live action,the replay showed Quillin's eyes and you could easily see that Quillin was out on his feet.
The victory cements Jacobs as the best middleweight on the PBC side,but it was notable in the post-fight interview that Jacobs didn't call out the best middles in the world-Gennady Golovkin,Canelo Alvarez etc,but instead spoke of a rematch with Qullin or maybe even the winner of the WBO title between Andy Lee and Billy Joe Saunders.
Some might look at the lack of a usual grandstand challenge (because we know one side rarely fights the other) as a lack of confidence on Jacobs part,but I look at it differently.
While I don't have any desire to see a rematch,I did like that Jacobs realizes the promotional issues and unless an sanctioning body comes in and demands a fight (the WBA could with Golovkin being their main champ with Jacobs their secondary titleholder), his outlook isn't strong for any of those guys.
I enjoyed the honesty....

I earned two points back with Jesus Cuellar's workmanlike unanimous decision over Jonathan Oquendo in a featherweight fight.
Not much to be said other than I scored it for the winner 117-111.
Chris Algeri continued his remake under new trainer John David Jackson with a unanimous decision of Erick Bone in a welterweight ten rounder.
I've been critical of Algeri in the past for a dull style and especially for his "win" over Ruslan Provodnikov,but in this fight and his close loss to Amir Khan,fans have seen a different Algeri-one willing to engage and interesting to watch.
Algeri was credited with an eighth round knockdown that really wasn't,but I still scored him a 96-93 winner in a solid action fight...

If I have time later,I may be back with the Giants signing of Jeff Samardzija,but I'll have Browns tomorrow and likely a new podcast....

Boxing Challenge

A small boxing challenge from tonight's Showtime televised card from Brooklyn.

Two of the bouts are for the WBA's "secondary" titles and the less said about those the better,but have interesting fights.
The middleweight bout is basically for the PBC's middleweight best as the PBC is weaker at the 160 pound division.
Even though the winner won't be nearly as highly regarded as the champions Gennady Golovkin or Canelo Alvarez,it matches Peter Quillin,who defended his secondary (WBO) title against less than strong opponents before vacating over promotional problems against Daniel Jacobs,a paper champion who has fought back from cancer,but has fought even worse competition than Qullin.
Quillin surprisingly to me made the 160 limit after missing it in an attempt to win the WBO belt from Andy Lee.
Lee took the bout anyway and in an exciting bout managed to push each other to a draw.
Jacobs was knocked out in the fifth in his only bout against good competition against Dmitri Pirog.
In the end,Quillin is the bigger guy,has more experience and I'm thinking takes a better shot,but I don't discount Jacobs either.
I'm more excited for this bout than I thought I'd be and I think it should be a pretty solid action fight.

This should be a bout worth watching-even if it's for the JV version of the middleweight title.

Jesus Cuellar takes Jonathan Oquendo in a featherweight bout and Chris Algeri returns after a game effort against Amir Khan against Erick Bone on the undercard.

Middleweights.12 rds
Peter Quillin vs Daniel Jacobs
R.L:Jacobs KO 5
TRS:Quillin KO 6

Featherweights.12 rds
Jesus Cuellar vs Jonathan Oquendo
R.L;Oquendo unanimous decision
TRS:Cuellar unanimous decision

Welterweights.10 rds
Chris Algeri vs Erick Bone
Both:Algeri unanimous winner

Pigskin Picking Machine

The PPM concludes the college football regular season and we will be picking each of the conference title games today...

Last Week:5-4
Overall:77-36

College
MAC title
Bowling Green over Northern Illinois 28-19

Conference USA title
Western Kentucky over Southern Mississippi 42-38

Mountain West title
San Diego State over Air Force 22-17

American title
Houston over Temple 31-21

SEC title
Alabama over Florida 24-6

Pac 12 title
USC over Stanford 41-35

Big 10 title
Michigan State over Iowa 17-13

ACC title
Clemson over North Carolina 30-17

Pros
Bengals over Browns 35-14
Panthers over Saints 32-26

Game of the Week
Seahawks over Vikings 27-23

Pedro Alvarez non-tendered by Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates have made the difficult decision to non-tender Pedro Alvarez and allow him to be a free agent.
Alvarez led the National League in homers in 2013,but could no longer play even a below average third base and when a move to first didn't boost his defense any and added to an absolute ineptness against lefthanded pitching-the decision became an easy one,when you consider the price Alvarez would cost.

Alvarez was the first draft pick of the Neal Huntington regime and is now going to be the first notable player in the book of how to cull a roster and attempt to continue to contend in a small market.
When you attempt to build through youth and talent on a budget,who you decide to keep and pay (Andrew McCutchen) and who you decide to allow to walk (Alvarez) is just as important as when you allow them to leave.
In the Pittsburgh (and Cleveland for that matter) markets,you need to pick the few players to build around and be willing to move the players that just become too expensive to keep.
The importance of keeping the system consistently pumping players through is paramount as the Pirates knew with the change of position for Josh Bell enabling the Pirates to replace Alvarez with luck sometime this summer with the cost-protected production of Bell at first base for a few years.

The power that Pedro Alvarez possesses will not be easy to replace,but the money that would have been spent on a one dimensional player (likely around eight million) can now go elsewhere-likely towards the middle to back of the pitching rotation (especially after the surprising turnaround and then loss of JA Happ) and it just didn't seem to be worth cutting the check towards considering that Alvarez would have been a free agent of the end of 2016 anyway.
Pittsburgh will likely try to slide by for a few months of Michael Morse at first base and then perhaps Josh Bell will be ready to step in after a freshening at AAA Indianapolis (and chopping a year off before arbitration doesn't hurt either) as the permanent first baseman...

As for Alvarez,where could he wind up?
Well,considering his clear defensive deficiencies,one would think that American League teams would have far more interest than teams in the senior circuit and I would think that the Indians could be one of those that find Alvarez interesting.
I'd think that they would DH him,but for a year at his cost,Alvarez could be a (not the) big bat that the Indians are looking for.
There are other AL teams that would be a nice fit,most notably the Orioles,in the event that they lose Chris Davis and maybe the Astros as a Alvarez/Evan Gattis would be a nasty DH platoon.

I was never a huge fan of Pedro Alvarez as he struck out a ton,looked like he'd gain weight (and did) and figured to eventually be a long term defensive liability (which happened sooner than even I thought),but considering his contract demands coming out of Vanderbilt and the presence of agent Scott Boras along with the bungled personnel moves of Dave Littlefield-the signing of Alvarez gave Pirates fans hope that a new era was on its way.
The development and arrival of Alvarez then gave fans hope that indeed this management group had an idea of what they were doing.
Now the departure of Pedro Alvarez will offer the next step in the Pittsburgh Pirates plan-being able to contend as players depart....

Three Favorites plus one!

A new recurring series here and maybe a future slot on the podcast.

I'll pick three favorite players of mine from the pre-1985 era who are in the Hall of Fame from a team and then add one player who isn't in the Hall that I think should be.

Of course, We'll start with the Browns!

No better place to start than with arguably the greatest player ever- Jim Brown.
A fullback with the speed of the modern halfback, Brown was two decades ahead of his time.

The speed to run away from defenders yet with the phenomenal strength to run over you, the player that most resembles the modern player in old films- Jim Brown is my favorite Brown in the hall...

My second favorite goes to coach and founder of the team- Paul Brown.
Yes, Brown gets an edge for creating the team, winning all of its championships except one (which was really his team that was built in 1964), but also for all the innovations that he brought to the game, such as calling the plays as a coach, helmet radios, the first facemask, etc,
For more on the innovation of Paul Brown, check out his episode of "A Football Life" on the NFL Network.
Plus, he earned tons of credit for being the first person to sniff out the skunk that was Art Modell...

The final one goes to deep threat Paul Warfield, who was the best receiver of the Browns, became the best passing threat on the Dolphins champions of the '70s, had a short stint in the WFL, and then returned home for a final two-season run with the Browns.
Warfield's numbers are skewered a bit by the time that he played in and the run-first teams he played on (the Browns with Jim Brown first and then Leroy Kelly and then the Dolphins of Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick), but his speed and flair ranked him as the deep threat of his time.
Warfield caught just 29 passes in 1973, but 11 went for scores.
Had Warfield played a little later, his reception numbers would have been much higher...

My pick for deserving Brown not in the Hall goes to Hanford Dixon.
Dixon was the best cover corner of his time and made a terrific pairing with Frank Minnifield as the best corner tandem of the 80's.
Dixon played his entire career with the Browns and unlike many "cover" corners (Coughs Deion Sanders) knew how to make a tackle.
Hanford Dixon was superior to quite a few corners in the HOF right now and deserves entry.

Honorable mention goes to Jerry Sherk, who I think was of that level before the staph infection that basically ended his career.
Sherk could have been that deserving.

I hope you enjoyed this feature and I may reach out to others to do their teams-Ryan with Packers,Battlin' Bob Steelers,Big Don Bills etc....

Fury upsets Klitschko-Boxing Challenge

Big weekend in the boxing challenge as I retained my five point lead over R.L.Malpica at 141-136 through different means.
Before we start,I watched the HBO replay of the Canelo Alvarez-Miguel Cotto fight and saw it at 116-112 for Alvarez.

The big news of the weekend saw England's Tyson Fury lift the WBA and IBF heavyweight titles from longtime champion Wladimir Klitschko via unanimous decision in Germany.
It was a truly dull fight without action,but I scored Fury a 115-112 winner (8-4 in rounds) after Fury was deducted a point late in the fight for punching behind the head.
Klitschko is contractually to a rematch and he has activated that clause .
Fury may vacate the IBF belt and begin to break up Klitschko's work as the IBF number one contender Vlacheslav Glazkov may not step aside in order to allow the rematch.
Klitschko looked very hesitant to me to throw the right hand and just couldn't "get it off".
It reminded me quite a bit of older Larry Holmes as Klitschko would cock the gun and just couldn't fire.
I understand why Klitschko wants and deserves a rematch,but as far as pleasing fights go,I doubt that it will be any better than this one-even if Klitschko wins....
R.L.picked Fury and added one point to his total as I selected Klitschko...

The fight of the weekend as far as action goes was from Quebec City,Canada as James DeGale took a unanimous decision to retain his IBF super middleweight title of Lucien Bute..
In a great fight,I had DeGale a 115-113 winner and I earned the point back that I lost from R.L with the DeGale win..
DeGale wants to unify titles with Badou Jack of the WBC and I'm all for that.
That may not be a huge fight,but I like seeing titles unified whenever possible,,,,

Neither of us scored points as Elieder Alvarez took a majority decision over Isaac Chilemba in a light heavy bout to become the mandatory contender for WBC champ Adonis Stevenson.
I scored it 114-114,,so my issue isn't Alvarez getting the duke,it's more because of a ridiculous 118-110 scorecard for Alvarez.

We enter the PBC mismatch portion of the show as each of us earned five points for squash matches.
Erislandy Lara knocked out washed up (and he wasn't that good to begin with) former IBF welter champ Jan Zaveck in three rounds.
Jermall Charlo stopped undeserving challenger Wilky Campfort in four rounds to retain his IBF 154 pound belt and super prospect Errol Spence stopped Alejandro Barrera in five.
I really see Spence as a rising star and I look forward to seeing Spence against improved competition whenever that will be,
PBC has tons of welterweight talent,if they would only match them up other than giving us more tired fights like the upcoming Danny Garcia-Robert Guerrero bout in 2016....

Josh McCown done for the season-Now What?

The Cleveland Browns announced that Josh McCown suffered a broken collarbone in their loss to Baltimore Monday night and will miss the remainder of the regular season.
McCown completes a competent regular season with 12 touchdown passes against just four interceptions,but the Browns would win just one game that McCown started (over the Ravens) during the season.

Now that McCown has exited stage left (even),the Browns have some decisions to make.
The first of which is bringing back former Buckeye and was released as the teams final cut before the season Terrelle Pryor.
Pryor will be the third quarterback as he is familiar with the system of John DeFlippo from his days in Oakland and training camp and may get some receiver reps as well.

The bigger of the questions is this-which quarterback will be the starter on Sunday against the Bengals-Johnny Manziel or Austin Davis?

Editor's Note-Davis was announced as the starter after this article was written.

Manziel makes sense as the "what can Johnny do" questions are still as valid as from the first pass that he threw,but Mike Pettine would have to let his personal bias go in order to do that.
Davis makes sense as the Browns signed him to a contract over the next few years and the Browns could argue (in-house of course) that it's Davis that needs to play to show his abilities-not Manziel.

I think the Browns should be considering quarterback anyway in the draft,but if I had to make this difficult decision,I'd go Manziel very reluctantly.
Simply because we have one thing on Austin Davis that we don't on Johnny Manziel-a sustained run of playing time of Davis taking snaps with the Rams.
Davis played with ten games with the Rams,starting eight,going 3-5 with 12 touchdowns against nine interceptions,while Manziel would have to start these final five games to match that level of playing time.

I don't think that there is a wrong way to go as legitimate reasons can be given to start either and I'd wouldn't have any problem with either player getting the start.
I think the Browns are going to go 1-4 at best down the stretch and I don't think either player is going to have a better chance than the other to better that possible record.
What it has become is a typical Browns season-Looking towards next season and that season's reason to hope....